Tesco to sell 2009 Lafite, Mouton, Cheval Blanc

UK supermarket Tesco has confirmed that it will be selling Chateau Lafite-Rothschild and Mouton-Rothschild as well as other top-level Bordeaux from the celebrated 2009 vintage.

The wines on offer will all be 2009s. Tesco will also be selling Chateau Cheval Blanc, Chateau Cos d’Estournel, and Chateau Pontet Canet.

These wines will be offered by the case, for the most part online.

Tesco cannot say when the wines will be available, nor their price, although Lafite is being sold by wine merchants for over £600 a bottle, and Mouton for £500.

The wines come from one of the most celebrated – and in some cases notorious – vintages of the last 25 years.

Lafite and Mouton have both fallen in price. They were released to wine merchants in June 2010 at €550 per bottle and very quickly shot up in value. Lafite’s rise was meteoric: at its peak in November 2010 it was on the market in London at £15,500 per case, or over £1,200 per bottle.

London merchant Farr Vintners sold ‘a good chunk’ at £15,500, director Oliver East told Decanter.com, but since then it has lost half its value.

Farrs is now selling cases of the Lafite 2009 for £8,000. ‘It is finding its market at a new price,’ East said. ‘But it’s definitely a buyer’s market.’

Mouton’s decrease has not been as dramatic as its fellow first growth, but it too has fallen from a high of £8,000 a case to £6,000 now.